Hibernate Envers – How to audit only base class (AbstractDict) and avoid creating audit tables for subclasses?

Hibernate ORM
1

Hello,

In the project I’m working on, I’m using Hibernate Envers to track changes to entities. I’ve encountered an issue where I want to audit only the base class AbstractDict (shown below), but Envers doesn’t seem to detect any changes unless I also annotate each subclass with @Audited.

Here’s the simplified structure:

@Audited
@AuditTable(schema = "audit", value = "abstract_dict_aud")
@Entity
@Table(name = "abstract_dict", schema = "dictionaries")
@AllArgsConstructor
@NoArgsConstructor
@Getter
@Setter
@Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.JOINED)
@JsonSubTypes({
    @JsonSubTypes.Type(value = GlossaryOfMeasureUnits.class, name = "MIERNIKI"),
    @JsonSubTypes.Type(value = GlossaryOfProcesses.class, name = "PROCESY"),
    @JsonSubTypes.Type(value = Area.class, name = "OBSZAR"),
    @JsonSubTypes.Type(value = ClientParameters.class, name = "PARAMETRY_KLIENTA"),
    @JsonSubTypes.Type(value = DocumentTypes.class, name = "TYPY_DOKUMENTOW"),
    // ... potentially 50+ more types
})
@JsonTypeInfo(use = JsonTypeInfo.Id.NAME, property = "dictionaryName", visible = true)
public abstract class AbstractDict extends AbstractAuditingEntity implements Serializable {
    // ...
}

Currently, Envers does not audit changes to AbstractDict unless I also annotate each subclass like this:

@Audited
@AuditTable(schema = "audit", value = "document_types_aud")
@Entity
@Table(name = "document_types", schema = "dictionaries")
@Getter
@Setter
public class DocumentTypes extends AbstractDict implements Serializable {

    @Override
    protected AbstractDict createNewWithExtendedFields() {
        return new DocumentTypes();
    }
}

This, however, leads to 50+ _AUD tables and additional schema clutter, which I’d prefer to avoid.
Moreover, to maintain referential integrity, I have to manually define foreign key constraints between subclass _aud tables and the base audit table:

ADD CONSTRAINT fkc2adk6hk7ew5uxxxx2qu16pe2
FOREIGN KEY (id, rev)
REFERENCES audit.abstract_dict_aud(id, rev)
DEFERRABLE INITIALLY DEFERRED;

My questions:

  1. Is there a way to configure Envers to only audit the base class (AbstractDict) and ignore its subclasses, while still tracking the changes made through them?
  2. Alternatively, is there a way to map all subclass changes to a single audit table (abstract_dict_aud) instead of generating one _AUD table per subclass?

I’ve read the official Envers documentation but couldn’t find an annotation or config that solves this.

Any insights or workarounds would be much appreciated!

2

If you want just a single audit table, I guess you could try to annotate all subtypes also with @AuditTable("my_audit_table"), but that’s as good as it gets.